Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Baldwin, Richard
BALDWIN, RICHARD, D.D. (1672?–1758), provost of Trinity College, Dublin, first became connected with the college by obtaining a scholarship in 1686. He was afterwards made a fellow, and on 24 June 1717 was appointed provost. On his death, 30 Sept. 1758, he bequeathed his fortune of 80,000l. to the college. The will was disputed by certain persons in England who claimed to be his relatives ; but after sixty-two years' litigation the case was in 1820 decided in favour of the college. His associates knew nothing of his nativity or parentage; but the claimants asserted that he was the son of James Baldwin, of Parkhill, near Colne, and that he was born in 1672 and educated at the grammar school at Colne, where he dealt a mortal blow to one of his schoolfellows, and on that account left England. A suggestion has also been made that he owed his promotion to the provostship to his relationship to some one of high influence. There is a marble monument to his memory in Examination Hall.
[Liber Hiberniæ, ii. 123; Taylor's History of the University of Dublin, 248-51.]